having been fortunate to work in 2 trades, plastering and tiling, i can say to anybody that tiling is one of the only trades that is
expanding rather than being streamlined in the way that other trades are, especially plastering and joinery.
you only have to look at australia to see how difficult it is to meet their criteria of a wall and floor tiler. in the 70's and 80's tiling did imo get a bit of a semi skilled tag due to the fact that alot of colleges didnt recognise it anymore as a 'city and guilds' recognised course and many decorators and plasters used to do kitchen and bathroom tiling but that was
only on the
domestic scene and it certainly didnt apply on the sites and specialist areas such as terrazzo..
now, a tiler has to be able to fix stone, prepare substrates, have a very very good technical & product knowledge, install wet rooms and ufh etc etc
so, mr knowles, you say any fool can tile?
well in the words of dale carnegie......'Any fool can critisise, and fools often do...
